Methodology Monday with slave ancestors

This month Transitional Genealogists discussed online Curtis G. Brasfield's "Tracing Slave Ancestors: Batchelor, Bradley, Branch, and Wright of Desha County, Arkansas" (National Genealogical Society Quarterly 92 [March 2004]: 6-30). As the author writes in the introduction, this family reconstruction involved three techniques "for solving any difficult genealogical problem:

"Broadening the research to include community and kinship groups, rather than focusing on the parentage of a specific individual

"Recognizing the indirect evidence that records provide, rather than seeking only those records that specify relationships directly

"Combining information from multiple records to reveal evidence not found in any single record, rather than analyzing each record separately from the others."

The article steps through oral history, original post-emancipation records (vitals, 1870 and 1880 censuses, land and probate records, Freedmen's Bureau records), identifying the slave owner (slave census schedules, tax records, estate records, and deeds), finishing with my favorite, "interweaving the evidence," where he pulls together the evidence identifying 22 individuals in two families, name by name. This article is a tour de force of interest to anyone with a tough problem, whether it involves slave research or not.

Chronicling America in Newspapers

I don't need to be convinced of the genealogical value of newspapers -- I once found an entire branch of my great-great grandfather's sister's family from a two-line social note in a rural Illinois paper, just because it gave a woman's married name when she came to visit.

So, a belated hat tip to Christy Fillerup and Daniela Moneta on the transitional genealogists' listserv, for pointing us to the Library of Congress's search site for locating where newspapers have been published in the US, and where surviving copies can be found now. Another site from the National Endowment for the Humanities US Newspaper Program offers access to state-level data that may be more precise, especially in those states with newspaper projects of their own.

(I cannot forebear to mention that three of NEH's eight national-level repositories are in the Midwest: the Wisconsin State Historical Society in Madison, the Center for Research Libraries in Chicago, and the Western Reserve Historical Society in Cleveland. Kansas State Historical Society is a fourth, and the rest are, um, out east somewhere.)

A chronic issue with catalog listings of old newspapers is imprecision about which dates are actually available. If the record says "1875-1877" check if there's fine print that says the issue you really really need is "wanting," i.e., not there. Or call ahead if it's a critical matter and a long trip. I also observe that some of the holdings listings appear to be 20 or more years old.

Illinois Civil and Congressional Township Maps

Woops -- I should have posted on this months ago. (Hat tip to Melissa Barker in the Transitional Genealogists forum for getting the ball rolling about maps the other day.) There's a central although well-hidden on line resource for maps of each Illinois county showing townships. If you're visiting in person, you have a good chance of finding such a map at the courthouse or library, one that will also include roads and landmarks, as I did in northwestern Illinois' Whiteside County last fall. If you're visiting virtually, you can get there in six easy steps:

(1) Visit the Illinois State Archives regional depositories page, maintained by the office of Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White.

(2) On the left-hand menu, click on the second tab down for "IRAD region map."

(3) That will bring up a colorful map of Illinois divided into seven regions, each festooned with the initials of the depository university. Click on your region of choice.

(4) That will bring up a close-up map of the region and its counties. Click on your county of choice.

(5) That will bring up a "_____ County Fact Sheet." Enjoy the facts; don't get too focused; but then scroll down a few screens to a thumbnail outline map of the county with subdivisions, which are the townships. (Hey, it's a big thumbnail.)

(6) Click on the thumbnail and presto, you have a printable map of the county and its townships. And when I say townships, I mean BOTH KINDS, the civil townships (with names you are or soon will become familiar with) and the congressional townships, with names like T36N R5E in La Salle County, which due to rivers that disobey the rectangular survey system, is not quite the same as the civil township of Northville.